foxhound
FULL MEMBER
- Joined
- Apr 1, 2007
- Messages
- 473
- Reaction score
- 0
ref:Ahmadinejad calls for regional security alliance to counter US influence | World news | The Guardian
Ahmadinejad calls for regional security alliance to counter US influence
Iran's president calls on Shanghai Cooperation Organisation members to unite against western 'colonialists and enslavers'
Share7 Associated Press
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 15 June 2011 17.11 BST Article history
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad joins his Kazakh, Afghan, Russian and Tajik counterparts at the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit. Photograph: Sasha Mordovets/Getty Images
Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has called for a security alliance of several former Soviet nations and China to form a united front against the west.
Ahmadinejad's address to heads of state at the summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO), in Kazakhstan could deepen suspicions that the bloc is intended as a counterbalance to US influence across the region.
In a summit declaration signed by all the member states, the organisation also attacked missile defence programmes.
"The one-sided and unlimited development of missile defence systems by one government, or a narrow group of governments, could cause damage to strategic stability and international security," the document says.
Much of Ahmadinejad's speech was devoted to an exhaustive series of thinly veiled accusations against unnamed western countries, which he described as "enslavers, colonialists [and] invaders".
Opening his address, he said: "Which one of our countries [has played a role] in the black era of slavery, or in the destruction of hundreds of millions of human beings?"
The SCO was formed in Shanghai in 2001 by China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan, to address religious extremism and border security in central Asia. In recent years it has attracted interest in full membership from Iran, India, Pakistan and Afghanistan. Its scope has since broadened to economic issues.
Iran's entry into the SCO has been resisted by the existing members, who worry that its membership would lend the group a more explicitly anti-American quality, a concern that Ahmadinejad was seemingly unwilling to allay.
Russia has been an active opponent of US-backed plans to create a missile shield in Europe and might have been behind harsh comments against the proposal in the summit declaration. Moscow sees the US missile defence plans as a potential threat to security. It has agreed to consider Nato's proposal to cooperate on the missile shield but insists the system is run jointly.
Afghanistan's president, Hamid Karzai, who is also participating in the summit, the SCO's 10th, renewed calls for the US to respect his country's sovereignty. In recent months the president has become increasingly strident in his criticism of Nato air strikes affecting Afghan civilians, describing the western-led alliance as being at risk of becoming an "occupying force".
Ahmadinejad calls for regional security alliance to counter US influence
Iran's president calls on Shanghai Cooperation Organisation members to unite against western 'colonialists and enslavers'
Share7 Associated Press
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 15 June 2011 17.11 BST Article history
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad joins his Kazakh, Afghan, Russian and Tajik counterparts at the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit. Photograph: Sasha Mordovets/Getty Images
Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has called for a security alliance of several former Soviet nations and China to form a united front against the west.
Ahmadinejad's address to heads of state at the summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO), in Kazakhstan could deepen suspicions that the bloc is intended as a counterbalance to US influence across the region.
In a summit declaration signed by all the member states, the organisation also attacked missile defence programmes.
"The one-sided and unlimited development of missile defence systems by one government, or a narrow group of governments, could cause damage to strategic stability and international security," the document says.
Much of Ahmadinejad's speech was devoted to an exhaustive series of thinly veiled accusations against unnamed western countries, which he described as "enslavers, colonialists [and] invaders".
Opening his address, he said: "Which one of our countries [has played a role] in the black era of slavery, or in the destruction of hundreds of millions of human beings?"
The SCO was formed in Shanghai in 2001 by China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan, to address religious extremism and border security in central Asia. In recent years it has attracted interest in full membership from Iran, India, Pakistan and Afghanistan. Its scope has since broadened to economic issues.
Iran's entry into the SCO has been resisted by the existing members, who worry that its membership would lend the group a more explicitly anti-American quality, a concern that Ahmadinejad was seemingly unwilling to allay.
Russia has been an active opponent of US-backed plans to create a missile shield in Europe and might have been behind harsh comments against the proposal in the summit declaration. Moscow sees the US missile defence plans as a potential threat to security. It has agreed to consider Nato's proposal to cooperate on the missile shield but insists the system is run jointly.
Afghanistan's president, Hamid Karzai, who is also participating in the summit, the SCO's 10th, renewed calls for the US to respect his country's sovereignty. In recent months the president has become increasingly strident in his criticism of Nato air strikes affecting Afghan civilians, describing the western-led alliance as being at risk of becoming an "occupying force".
